R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

216 R. W. MacanBut, albeit 'Reform from within' had been proceedingslowly meanwhile, the demand for a fresh Commission,to extend, co-ordinate and accelerate the process was toourgent to be much longer resisted. The Universities Commissionof 1877, emanating from a Conservative Government,was the welcome result. The demand for furtherUniversity reforms had accumulated, by no mere aceident,an irresistible force within ten years of the Reform Act of1867; and no one thought of describing the UniversitiesBill of 1877 as 'a leap in the dark'. The Oxford Commissionaccomplished its proper task by the close of 1882,and made way again for the normal and statutable processof ' reform from within '; which sufficed down to thelate Lord Curzon's famous 'Red Letter' of 1908, and onto the third Commission of 1923, clearly relative to theReform Acts of 1918 and 1927, which have added5,000,000 souls—or suffragists—to the Electorate, makingthings pleasant for the Proletariate. The third waveshould by rights be the most overwhelming. But ourthird Commission, though summoned by Moab andPhilistia to curse, has ended (they tell me) in blessing theacademic Israel altogether. In fact the Commission,perhaps, effected, in consultation with University andColleges, little which the University and Colleges werenot prepared to do of their own motion. The effects, however,have been more uniform and rapid. Further resultsare of course in the future. We know what and where weare, but we know not what we shall be; nor what shall bethe condition of Art and Letters, of Science and Religion,in the Oxford of the 'seventies, forty years ahead, whichsome of us may live to see. However that may be, withinnow living memory Oxford has undergone a series ofinner changes and developments, in view of which theformer 'seventies may fairly be described as a purelytransitional section: preserving much, in matter and in